Enemies of the Church - Jude

The Battle

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Apostasy

Track: 04

Dictation Name: RR307B4

Location/Venue: ________

Year: _______

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast promised thy blessings to all who trust in thee. Oh Lord our God, increase our faith. Give us day by day total trust and reliance in thee, that in all things we may learn to commit ourselves totally into thy keeping--to take hands off our lives in the confidence that what thou hast begun thou wilt accomplish. Bless us this day, and by thy word and by thy Spirit speak to us the Word that we need, and empower us for thy service. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Jude 17-25. Jude 17-25. Our subject, The Battle.

“17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:

23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”

Faced by false teachers many in the church have been, and are today, easily discouraged. Some leave large denominations that are clearly astray only to find that there are problems in smaller and reform minded churches and groups. Their disparaging attitude becomes “what’s the use?”. Jude now warns against this danger. What can they expect? Will the enemy lie down and die because they have come to the truth? Or will he not, in fact, rage all the more! In verses seventeen through twenty Jude reminds his readers that the apostles predicted such a development.

Jesus Christ has created a new human race by his atoning death and resurrection and by his regenerating power. They are involved in the great war of the ages, and it will not be settled at once, nor in their lifetime, nor in ours. Therefore, Jude says, remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. In verse eighteen he refers to the last days; meaning thereby, as does every such reference, the time from Christ’s resurrection to the general resurrection at the end of time.

These are the last times in which all Christians live. These last times are marked, Jude says, by mockers. Their purpose is to put down Christ, his disciples, and his people by mockery. In verse fifteen the word ungodly is used four times to describe Christ’s enemies. It is used here again in verse eighteen. History now sees that mockery: a savage contempt and hostility to Christ and his people. Holiness is a separation to God, but the ungodly have their own form of separation to unholiness. These unholy people, verse nineteen says, having not the spirit separate themselves to a purely sensual or physical existence; meaning for them is radically personal, not cosmic. Man centered and not God centered.

Jude tells his readers that as against this they must grow and build themselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the holy spirit--he says in verse twenty--, as against the self righteousness of their enemies, they grow by prayer. Prayer is a recognition of our needs and of our dependence on the triune God. Knowing our sins and shortcomings we keep ourselves--verse twenty-one--in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and eternal life. Our salvation is an act of mercy and grace on Christ’s part, and Jude reminds Christians of this fact. They must not presume on the Lord’s grace by assuming one is saved, that they are now a member of a deserving group; from start to finish they are entirely dependent on the Lord’s grace and mercy.

In verse twenty-two, Jude, having spoken very plainly about the heretics--the false teachers, troublemakers--now makes a distinction. Some are not of the same sort as the others, but are rather redeemable. Have compassion and make a difference between them. This does not mean being less clear about their errors and sins: like firemen, pull them out of the fire. As we do so we must be fearful of the contagion of sin. Thus, our kindliness to them is not a indifference to their sin, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh--verse twenty-three--refers to the disease. Jude speaks of sin as a contagious disease.

Our concern for their recovery does not blind us to the need of care lest we be infected. In verse twenty-four and twenty-five we have a superb benediction much used over the generations, it tells us first that God preserves his own. He keeps us from falling. This is the doctrine of the preservation of the saints. Second, God shall present us in time to the very fulness of his glory with exceeding joy! Therefore, third, we must ascribe to the only wise God our Savior glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever, amen--verse twenty-five concludes. For all eternity God will be joyfully praised, God is our infinite, almighty, and omniscient resource; and his praise is a wellspring of life and joy.

In verse three Jude spoke of our common salvation. That is, the same for all. The Gnostics have an elitists faith, one reserved for intellectuals who could follow their scientific and philosophical thinking into strange byways. Antinomianism marked them because their faith was metaphysical and not ethical. Isn’t it interesting? To this day the heirs of the Gnostics stress metaphysics, not ethics, not morality. For (Marcian?), God being superior meant that he did not judge. Interesting how the superior religiously in our time feel that they are above us Bible believes “They don’t judge.” except in judging us, of course.

How constant the strains of heresy are. Way back then, with the gnostics, you had the love babies who loved everybody except those who disagreed with them and called attention to their errors. Well, we can see why Jude’s condemnation inspired by the Holy Spirit is so sharp. We can also understand the contemporary Gnosticism whether called new age thinking, theosophy, aquarian age ideas, or anything else, because all seek to live beyond good and evil and beyond morality. They are metaphysical, they are superior,...as against contemporary faiths which bypass morality as the Bible defines it for a worship of life and nature.

Jude’s brief letter is a devastating indictment. A more wretched and beggarly faith than Gnosticism is hard to imagine and yet in each new form over the centuries --in fact, generation after generation after generation-- it’s followers have been legioned. Their position is for anything but the truth, and anyone other than Jesus Christ.

Those who love the truth will be hated by all who love and believe in a lie, and such people are now very very many. The direction of antinomianism is a religion without a morality. It is another spiritual gnosticism. Let us pray.

Our Father, let us give thanks unto thee for Jude’s letter and for his warning. Indeed, we see the same evil all around us, and we thank thee that by thy grace and mercy we have been summoned -not because of our good sense but because of thy good grace- into thy truth. Make us strong therein. Grant that day by day our total reliance is on thee and on thy word, and that we may serve thee with all our heart, mind, and being. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Yes?

[audience member] Rush, you talked about the neccesity of working to redeem those who ahve not totally lost the tide. Would you comment on the Anabaptist spirit which demands perfection in the church and will separate from any church which is not absolutely perfect and doesn’t meet up to it’s own standards?

[Rushdoony] Yes. The Anabaptist spirit is very much with us today--we have the openly Anabaptist groups, in some like the Amish and the Mennonites, the Hutterites and other such groups...the Quakers, too, but it’s broader than that. It is very much present in antinomianism. You have to realize that the Purists among the Anabaptists would go so far as to insist that the sermon on the Mount was their religion! They didn’t go beyond that, and they could openly say that capital punishment was evil because it was not referred to on the Sermon on the Mount, or that they should never fight or go to war because there’s no mention of that in the Sermon on the Mount. The Anabaptists usually wind up in a works salvation.

They go back to some of the medieval sects and they spread with the reformation but they are really not a part of the reformation or a part of the medieval order. They were dissenters against both. Anabaptism now has pretty much infected vast sections of fundamentalism, and they have wound up, like the Anabaptists, with very little Bible. Their dispensationalism has added to that tendency. So, Anabaptist thinking is very very much with us. The {?} at the reformation while not an Anabaptist outwardly was in his thinking somewhat on their side.

[audience member] The opposition to music in the church and so forth?

[Rushdoony] Yes...yes. Which meant that he paid no attention to the Old Testament, and to much of the New. Yes?

[audience member] I’m curious, comparing the mockers of Christianity in Jude’s time to, say, Hollywood today that mocks Christianity. A new element has been added, I think, unless you can correct me from historical background. Why do we pay them to do it, in huge sums of money to create this mockery?

[Rushdoony] Well, I don’t know! But they do. Prior to television fundamentalism boycotted movies, but with television they started to watch on television the old movies that they had refused to go to a theater and see, and since then, television has broken down a great deal of the old fashioned fundamentalism. The sad fact is that although the legion of decency held the line until, oh, I believe the sixties. At that time the whole movement to keep the films inline fell apart. Strangely enough, the people responsible for it were the Methodists. The most liberal of any of the groups in that coalition, they began to turn very strongly anti-Catholic and created problems for the Catholic element in the legions of decency, and that had been a powerful element.

Well, with that, every group pulled out. The Catholic’s said “If that’s the way they feel about us, we’re not going to stay.” And so, the best means of keeping films somewhat in line was destroyed by the most liberal of the Protestant groups. And no attempt had been made since then to reestablish anything of similar character and none of the churches, Protestant or Catholic, have any strong sentiment in favor of doing so.

[audience member] The argument that the mockers use nowadays is that it’s their civil right, because of the constitutional guarantee of free speech that they don’t have to defend themselves on moral grounds anymore, because the constitution supposedly gives them the power to mock Christianity with impunity.

[Rushdoony] Well, before that time we were successful in the courts, but after that there was a collapse and there’s no concerted effort to go back and fight on moral issues, and so the morality of Hollywood and of Humanism largely prevails today.

They’re making money, but not as they once did because it’s inflated dollars now. The audience went from, in the early sixties seventy-five million a week to, at the last count (and we haven’t had a reliable report for some years) ,fourteen million a week, attending films. Are there--yes?

[audience member] On that same point, what I find is interesting is Disney. One of the biggest offenders has cloaked themselves as children, saying “we’re good for the children” and there are very few Christian, real Christian families that will stand up to their children and say “we’re not going to Disneyland, we not seeing the Lion King”, etc, etc. I think that they’re like the battering ram hidden behind this cloak of children with all the snot behind it. And it’s--

[Rushdoony] It is said that forty percent of the male employee’s of the Disney studios are homosexual. They do slant everything they produce, in terms of their basic humanistic faith and their immoral lifestyle. Now, there are a few groups that are beginning to take a stand on this. Hopefully more will do so. Yes?

[audience member] I should mention, Rush, there are a few good Christian film organizations that are generating some good wholesome films, these days. They’re in the minority of course but, you know, American Portrait Films, in Cleveland, and there are some out here in the West. But, for the most part the major film industry is apostate and we know that.

Any other questions or comments? If not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that thy truth shall prevail. That thy word is truth and thy people been called to go ahead and conquer in the name of Christ the truth. Make us strong in our resolve, constant in our faith, bold in thy service that we may be more than conquerors in all things. And now, go in peace God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Guide and bless you, protect and watch over you this day and always. Amen.